Sunset and the Seven Girls

Chapters

Prologue - What are the chances of that happening?
Sunset's Arrival
Fighting the Shadows
Questions and Answers
Date with Twilight
Suddenly, Ninjas

Prologue - What are the chances of that happening?

“Wha- Are you bucking serious?!” Twilight exclaimed.

This wasn't proper behavior for a princess, but Twilight Sparkle couldn't help it, the words she had just heard were just way too unexpected.

The pony who had shocked Princess Twilight Sparkle into that was a unicorn called Sunset Shimmer, who was doing one of her usual visits to Equestria and was talking with her friend about her recent experiences in the human world.

She smirked “Yep. I am one hundred percent serious.”

Sunset had already visited her old teacher and talked with Twilight's friends, but she hadn't talked a lot about what she had been doing lately until this point, where she and Twilight were discussing things in one of the rooms of Twilight's castle, just as a general form of catch-up for all the day-to-day things. Apparently, the reason why she had been so tight-lipped about her activities in the human world since her last visit was solely so that she could better surprise Twilight at that point.

And what exactly had surprised Twilight so much?

“Are you telling me that, somehow, ever since your last visit, you've entered into a romantic relationship with the human versions of myself and my friends?” Twilight said in an incredulous voice.

“Indeed. That is exactly what happened.” Sunset was still smirking.

Twilight started to boggle at her, but then she took a deep breath and calmed herself down. She asked:

“Could you tell me how exactly this happened?”

Seeing that Twilight had recovered, Sunset also stopped smirking and spoke seriously “It was a strange story. Do you remember that deal about the dimensional transfer machine?”

“Yes. It is pretty hard to forget when Twilight gave me a blow-by-blow of the entire adventure.” The princess answered.

“Right. The thing is, Twilight decided that it would be safer just to make the machine look at alternate realities and she did the necessary alterations. Only... during the first test, an accident happened.” Sunset said with a funny, embarrassed expression.

“An accident, huh...” Twilight said.

“Yes. It was something pretty weird and unexpected. But the accident caused the machine to malfunction, and it connected with some similar realities...” Sunset shook her head “It was complex, but by the end of it, each one of the six had memories in their head of an alternate reality where I was in a relationship with them.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow “That is truly a weird situation. So, each of them thought they were Sunset's girlfriend, which must have been confusing when the others said the same.”

“You think that was confusing? I somehow managed to get memories for every one of the alternate realities. One where I was Applejack's girlfriend, one where I was Rarity's and so on and so forth.” She sighed “Contradictory memories aren't any fun, specially because I also had my normal memories... Thankfully, the realities connected were pretty similar, so apart from the relationship things, the rest of the memories were all the same, which made it easier to cope.”

“I can tell that this would be an awkward situation.” Twilight pointed out unnecessarily.

“Indeed.” Sunset nodded “It was soon decided that Twilight would fix the machine and use it to remove all foreign memories... But it took three weeks for her to do that.”

“And the potential for particularly special shenanigans in even only three weeks of such a situation is close to unlimited.” Twilight snarked.

“Got it in one.” Sunset nodded “There were all those memories affecting their behavior, combined with their hormones and our already good relationship... Well, I ended up getting very close to them by the end of those weeks.” Sunset said, unable to resist showing a grin.

“I can imagine you did.” Twilight spoke with only a little bit of of snark added to it.

“And then the process was completed and we were all returned to normal.” Sunset adopted a lecturing tone “Only the memories from the last three weeks were all still there, and things got a little awkward for the next four days. Until the six got together, talked about it, and decided to make a proposal to me.”

“And here we have it.” Twilight said.

“Yes. They decided to share me, initially just to see if it would work out... But things have been going well, and I'm managing to make them happy.” Sunset spoke with a broad smile on her face.

“I can't even imagine that... Just one significant other is already so complicated.” Twilight spoke sincerely.

“Trixie, right? I know her human version a bit, but I never saw her here.” Sunset said.

“She has her own schedule and it never happened to coincide with one of your visits.” Twilight shrugged.

“Okay...” Sunset thought for a bit “Ah. There is another interesting thing that happened.”

“What?”

“Principal Celestia actually managed to find my human version. She heard about me and agreed to come as an exchange student to our school.” She put a hoof on her chin “I offered to share my room with her, because it could be interesting.”

Twilight just stared at her friend “Interesting... Yeah, you are definitely the kind that can't have a quiet life... Just be careful not to end up seducing her too.” The princess joked.

Sunset scoffed “Ah, come on, Twilight. What are the chances of that happening?”

-0-

On their next meeting...

“And what do you have to say for yourself?” Twilight asked Sunset, looking at her like she was a misbehaving student.

“I... Was not careful enough?” Sunset shrugged, with an abashed expression.

Twilight gave her the flattest look possible. Sunset actually got reminded of her time as Celestia's student.

It seemed like Twilight really was taking well to being a princess.

Sunset sighed “It was also really unexpected for me... There wasn't any big event that caused the human Sunset to also become my girlfriend. It was more like a succession of small events that pushed things forward little by little, to the point where I didn't realize what was going on until it was too late.”

Twilight also sighed “I can barely imagine. How many times were there mistaken identity shenanigans involving you two?”

“Weirdly, never.” Sunset spoke with a disbelieving voice “There were a lot of shenanigans, but none of them involved mistaken identities in that sense.”

Twilight put a hoof to her face “That only makes me more curious! That's it, then. You are not leaving until I have heard the entire story from you!”

“Are... are you sure? Because this is a pretty long story, and we don't have that much time.”

Twilight smiled at her in a slightly crazy way “Oh. That is not going to be a problem.”

Then she activated her magic, she conjured a heavy crate, the kind used for transporting supplies in the military.

Then she charged a lot more magic and cast a spell that made Sunset's coat stand on end and enveloped the room in a sphere of light.

“Is... Is this a time spell?” Sunset asked, knowing that it was but refusing to believe in this situation.

“Yes. With this, even if one entire week passes inside here, it will only be a few minutes outside. Now you don't have any reason to leave before telling the story.” Twilight said with an impish grin.

“This is kind of an abuse of awesome magic powers...” Sunset spoke with a complicated expression “And why does it feel like you were already planning on something like this.”

Twilight's face fell “Okay. There are a few reasons for that. While it usually doesn't look like it, I actually am very interested in romance-type stuff. Cadance was my foal-sitter, and she got me started on that.”

“I'm listening.” Sunset said with a deadpan expression.

“The only reason why I didn't bombard you with questions about your relationship last time was because I was just too surprised. Not only it is romance, but it is also an interplay between romance and friendship, which is something I am very interested in.” Twilight closed her eyes “And then there's the second issue. Cadance herself. I mentioned about your unusual relationship and since then she started bugging me about giving her details... I was going to make you give enough details that I could placate her for a while, this new development simply made me even more interested in what you have to say.”

Sunset blinked “Okay. I guess I can understand that. So, where do I start... Perhaps it would be best to begin when the human Sunset came to the school...”

Twilight listened to the story with eagerness.

Author's Note

If you have read that story, you should have noticed that this story is inspired by Oroboro's For the Love of Sunset. And in fact the entire Sunset Shipping Project.

The story Sunset tells is how I thought that story would end while I was reading. But since the ending was different from what I had imagined, I ended up getting inspired to write this.

Finally returning to romance, and I hope you will like it.

Sunset's Arrival

It was just a normal day for me. I woke up at 07:00 AM and brushed my teeth, ate and changed clothes, with nothing unusual happening, which isn't a sure thing. Then I got on the computer and saw a new e-mail from an unfamiliar address. I opened it to find the message:

'HOW CAN I GET ALL THE BITCHES LIKE YOU?'

-0-

“What?” Twilight asked, uncomprehending.

“Yeah...” Sunset sighed “Getting six girlfriends, specially those six... I kinda became a legend in the school, so guys kept sending me messages like that.” Then she smirked “And most of them didn't like when I told them the truth.”

“I can imagine...” Twilight blinked “What, most?”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded “There were a few who just wanted help with their crushes, and some of them later sent other messages saying that my advice worked. Of course, their initial messages were much more polite than that one.”

“This is definitely something Cadance would enjoy listening about...” Twilight summoned a scroll and started writing in it “What exactly was your advice, anyway?”

“Well...”

-0-

'First. Don't call girls “Bitches”, this is a lack of respect that would be a fatal flaw for most romantic prospects. Second, if you want to receive romantic affection from a girl, the ideal path is based on empathy. You must care about the girl's feelings and concerns and grant them the highest degree of priority. You must try to understand the girl and her interests. You must make your intentions clear and discuss things honestly with her. With all this together, it is possible to get a girl, and if you are rejected anyway, the most important point is to accept her decision (caring about her feelings, remember?) and try your luck with another one. In regards to having multiple partners, this is something that needs to be discussed between you and the girls, and trying to force things would only backfire.'

That was my completely honest and truthful response to what he was actually asking. I smirked as I imagined what face he would make while reading (I didn't actually know what he looked like so I imagined a particularly smug random male face).

After finishing those important matters, I left the house to go on my usual 30 minute run to keep my stamina up. After that I took the bus and went to the airport, because Sunset would get there around 8:15 and I needed to be there to receive her.

When I got there, I had an idea and bought one of those white posters you can write things on. I wrote “Sunset” in it and held it near the exits together with the other people who were receiving others, because I thought it would be funny.

Eventually, she appeared, carrying a heavy wheeled trunk. Looking at her, I saw a girl that had determination, but no clear goals to walk towards. A girl who carried some frustration but hid it deeply within herself, unwilling to show weakness. A girl with abilities that made her stand out among others but also made it harder for her to make friends.

-0-

“You sure saw a lot of things.” Twilight said, giving Sunset a skeptical look.

“Haha...” Sunset put a hoof behind her head “Maybe I'm conflating my future understandings of her character with my thoughts at the time...”

“... Just move on with your story.”

-0-

I could tell right away the moment she saw me. She got an expression of surprise/shock, and then she saw my sign and that was replaced by bewilderment. And then she grinned slightly and I could tell she was going to try and have some fun.

She walked in front of me and affected the kind of posh accent even Rarity would consider too much “Excuse me. I do believe I am the person you are waiting for.”

So I played along “Really? Then tell me your name. Your full name, not just the part that is on the poster.” I said in a serious voice.

“Easy. My name is Sunset Shimmer.” She stopped for a moment “And considering that I told you my name, I believe it would be polite for you to introduce yourself as well.”

So that was how she wanted to play it. I decided to see where this would lead “Of course, how could I forget? In that case..” I offered her a hand “Hello Sunset Shimmer, my name is Sunset Shimmer.”

“Nice to meet you, Sunset Shimmer. So... Do you think I'm the person you are waiting for?” She had abandoned her posh accent. She was weakening. It was almost over. I decided to deal the final blow.

“Hmm... I'm still not entirely sure. But I think you'll do anyway.”

She couldn't take it anymore and cracked up. Victory.

“Hehe... Okay, but serious talk. I heard that there are people who look just like you in the world, but having the same name as well is kind of a really big coincidence. Even looking at you like that it is still hard to believe.” She managed to say.

“Actually, there is an explanation for that. And it manages to be even more bizarre than just a freaky coincidence.” I said to her.

“Oh?” She was obviously interested.

“Essentially, I'm a version of you from an alternate dimension.” I spoke simply.

She was speechless for a moment “... That isn't usually how these things go.” She finally said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Usually there should be a whole process, preparing the terrain for this kind of revelation by first introducing the idea of alternate dimensions, and then the idea of dimensional doubles, and then you could say a thing like that.” She spoke with a certain level of aggravation on her voice.

“That is just a waste of time.” I declared “You are smart and don't need me to explain those kinds of concepts, and 'preparing the terrain' sounds like I'm trying to fool you. I don't need to try and make this convincing when I can simply show you proof of my claims later.”

She looked at me for a few moments, seemingly trying to put her thoughts in order. Then she sighed lightly “Okay, I'm convinced. I still want to see that proof you are talking about, but I'm willing to believe in your words for now.”

I grinned at her “That's nice, but we have spent too long standing here. Let us go take a bus home, and I'll give you some details on the way.”

And that was how things went. We took a bus, and I explained about magic, about different dimensional properties, about the mirror and about how we simply knew far too little about how everything worked. I could tell she was still not one hundred percent convinced, but she certainly wanted it all to be true, wanted to be able to take part is something of that magnitude.

-0-

“You certainly trusted her with a lot of information.” Twilight said.

“You know how it is...” Sunset started “Part of the reason why I fell out with Celestia was feeling like she was hiding things from me. So I thought another version of me would probably feel similarly if I kept withholding things until she was 'ready'.”

“I can understand that.” Twilight allowed.

“Besides, I would keep an eye on her just in case. But mostly, I thought that extending my hand in friendship like you did for me was simply the right thing to do.” Sunset said solemnly.

“I guess I can't censure you for that.” Twilight said “And what happened next?”

-0-

Eventually we got to the place where I live, one of the places owned by the school, an apartment that's only a block away from it.

I got out my key and opened the door, and after Sunset entered the place, I showed to her everything, since she would be living there from then on. I showed her my bedroom (she left her trunk there, to unpack later), the bathroom, kitchen and living room. It wasn't a big place, but I had lived there for a while and had made it a cozy space, one which I thought was certainly big enough to hold one more person.

“So, what do you think?” I asked Sunset.

She had a weird expression on her face “It feels like home. Feels just like I would want my place to be.”

Understanding her feelings, I pushed past any awkwardness by speaking scientifically “This isn't really a surprise. From what I've been able to see, the parallels between this dimension and mine are big enough that dimensional alternates would have similar personalities and tastes. Combining that with the fact I've been in this world for a while, it is not strange that my choices reflect your tastes so closely.”

That did work, though the way she looked at me after that made me realize I may have been influenced by my Twilight a little too much.

She shook her head in amusement “Okay. So where will I sleep here?” She asked.

“Oh, this is a fun part!” I said, then I went back to my room.

Reaching under my bed, I slid out a mini-bed. Despite being thin, it was actually pretty comfortable, and after being used, it could simply slide back under the bed to not get in the way. Sunset actually laid down on it for a minute to check, and she approved.

Then I helped her unpack. I had already prepared things to give some space in the bathroom cupboard and the clothes drawer for her to put her things, because why wouldn't I do that once I knew someone was coming? That is the meaning of being efficient.

It was a saturday, and that meant I had no classes for the entire day and could focus on showing Sunset around, so once everything was unpacked we left and I took her on a tour of the city. I pointed out to her both shopping centers, a few of the parks, and the street that contained everything, from stores selling furniture to dentist clinics.

I obviously also showed her the hospitals and both the subway and the central bus station, from where you could go anywhere in the city. And after that, the last important thing to worry about was Canterlot College itself, since she would be studying there from now on.

We took a bus there, and when we were getting close to the stop, I spoke:

“And here is Canterlot College. My girlfriends are currently in classes, but later on I'll be able to introduce you, they were also interested.”

She looked at me in a weird way “GirlfriendS?” She asked.

“Oh yeah. Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle.” I pulled out a picture of the seven of us on my phone and showed it to her “They are also involved in the whole magic thing, but that part of the story is something I would rather talk about with them present.”

Sunset returned the phone to me and raised an eyebrow “Girlfriends?”

I sniggered, the idea that she was more skeptical of the possibility of me having those six as girlfriends than she was of the possibility of magic existing... “Oh yeah,” I managed to say “It's a funny story.” The bus stopped “But we have to go now.”

Sunset shook her head and stepped out of the bus behind me. I pointed to the building in front of us, a massive snake-like two floor affair that was shaped like a C.

“That's the Central Institute of Sciences, the heart of the college. It has a lot of classrooms equally used by humanities and exact sciences, but most importantly the biggest computer labs” I shook my head “The name is somewhat misleading, but this is because of historical reasons.”

I kept going with the explanation “South of here is the banking center and the college restaurant, you can get a good meal from there cheaply if you have your student ID. North from here is the library and the main offices. East from here are the classrooms and labs for the biology and medicine courses. And to the West there are a lot of pavilions for varied purposes, mostly used as extra classrooms, but also theaters, meeting rooms and all those sorts of things.”

She closed her eyes to try and commit it to memory “Okay. So it would be best to set my courses based on where they will take place. I can set the courses via internet, but is there a map or something to be able to show me the names of each place?” She asked.

“Well...” I started, but was interrupted by a sound similar to an explosion of liquid.

Then, the shadows all around started getting darker and darker.

“Ah. Of course something would happen today...” I complained.

“Wha-” She was about to say, but didn't manage to finish due to her surprise.

Because that was when it started. Dozens of amorphous shadow figures emerged from the darkened patches around the building. Bigger than humans but not much, those figures slid quickly across the ground. One of them came to attack me, and I pointed a finger at it and shot a small spell to pierce through it and destroy it.

With my other hand, I reached inside my pocked and grabbed a small wand which I gave to Sunset, saying “Point at the things and yell 'fire!' to shoot.”

She kept frozen for a moment, before having her eyes widen dramatically. The reason for that was because most of the other people who were nearby had pulled out similar wands and were currently blasting at the shadow things. Yells of “Expeliarmus!”, “Alakazam!”, “Firaga!”, “Zio!” and other things were sounding. The spells weren't as powerful as mine, being unable to destroy the creatures in one shot, but they were enough to keep them at bay and slowly whittle them down.

She grit her teeth in determination and pointed the wand at the closest enemy and yelled “Fire!”, shooting a bolt of energy at the thing. The thing was blasted backwards a few feet and Sunset stopped for a moment, her thoughts unknown. Then another creature came close and she blasted at that one too.

I grinned. It looked like the girl was adapting remarkably well.

Author's Note

As you have seen, I made a few changed to the setting. You can consider it somewhat AU.

Next chapter, we will have the other six.

Fighting the Shadows

In between blasts of her wand, Sunset managed to ask:

“What is going on?” In a voice that came very close to meriting an exclamation point.

“Magic, specially dimensional magic, attracts problems.” I summarized.

Her expression was halfway understanding and halfway miffed, that second part probably due to me apparently not taking the situation seriously (at that time, I was shooting spells with one hand while keeping the other under my chin, so maybe I was indeed being too flippant), considering what she said next:

“Why aren't you taking this seriously?” Again, in a voice that avoided the exclamation point only due to a technicality. She probably felt that shouting would not improve her chances of being answered, but still wanted to show her feelings somehow.

“Because of that.” I said, pointing at a particular student, who was completely surrounded by shadow monsters. One of them pounced.

“AAh-” That definitely would have been a shout had it not been interrupted.

She had seen that student turn into light and disappear when the monster was about to hit him.

“The situation is under control.” I said, putting some seriousness into my voice, because this was new to Sunset, something which I had almost forgotten “There's an automatic escape system.”

The look on her face felt like she wanted to ask a million questions, but she managed to suppress her curiosity and ask:

“Okay, so what should I do?”

“Just stay near me, I'll try to find the source of those things.” I said.

Then I activated a spell to try and do what I had just said. It wasn't anything really complicated, simply a magic that analyzed the energy signature of the shadow monsters and searched for the biggest source of that signature.

It didn't take long until I got what I was expecting, a massive energy signature coming from the direction of the main offices.

“Let's go!” I called Sunset and ran towards the institute building.

Entering into it and moving towards the backdoor, with Sunset following closely, I took a moment to assess the surrounding situation. The fight between the students and the shadow monsters was particularly brutal, and interestingly well matched. The shadow monsters had numbers on their side, but the students were taking advantage of cover and choke points as well as cooperating effectively.

I blasted several shadow monsters to reduce the pressure on the students, and a few of them even managed to find the time to give me thumbs up, before going back to the fight and allowing me to exit the building from the other side, where I could easily see what that energy had been about.

A gargantuan, two story tall humanoid shadow monster was punching at a white magical barrier around the main office. This wasn't such a surprising thing, since the most important magical artifacts that kept the spells around the school working were stored below there.

Thankfully, as befitting such an important location, there were several layers of automatic protection spells, and the Shadow Leader (as I had nicknamed him in my mind) was still struggling against the first layer.

There was also a huge crowd of shadow monsters between the institute building and the Shadow Leader, perhaps enough to allow them to overwhelm the defense the students were mounting there, but those shadows were actually acting as guardians, in order to prevent enemies from interfering with the attempts of their leader to breach the shield.

I moved far enough away from the building to be free from the repercussions of the battle, but not close enough to the guardian shadows to cause them to attack. Then I stopped and started to think, as Sunset stopped by my side and eyed the monsters warily.

If I could reach the barrier, I could use my access to draw power from the formations and use a few spells capable of dealing with the problem, but it would be too dangerous to try to get through the crowd of shadows without any support, specially because I didn't want to risk leaving Sunset by herself in this kind of situation.

Thankfully, I wasn't alone.

A sound from above made me look, and what I saw was Rainbow Dash, leaping from the top of the institute building and softening her landing with a burst of magic, before looking up at me with her usual grin. And she was only the first.

In short order, the other five arrived as well. None of them had an entrance as impressive as Rainbow Dash's (three of them simply came running from the same place me and Sunset had passed, while Fluttershy and Twilight came from the west, flying low on top of a magical platform), but their timing had been absolutely perfect.

As soon as we were all together, I could feel the locket filling me with extra power drawn from the connection. Now, things had changed.

Rarity noticed Sunset beside me and smiled at her “Hello. You must be Sunset's new roommate. My name is Rarity.”

I noticed that she didn't call Sunset something like “other-Sunset” or similar titles. Rarity really was good at dealing with people.

“And I'm Sunset, but you already knew that.” Was the answer.

The other five quickly introduced themselves to her, and then we started to plan what to do.

“The best option is to borrow power from the formation.” Was my opinion “Twilight, do you think just destroying the boss will also get rid of the others, or do we need to do something extra?”

“Let me check.” She closed her eyes, muttering soundlessly and fidgeting with her hands.

After preparations were complete, she extended her right hand with the palm upward, and a very detailed image of the Shadow Leader appeared there. And a moment later, visible representations of the lines of magic around him also appeared to complete the model.

“Yes.” Twilight said after a few moments of peering at it “Destroying that shell should be enough to handle all problems.”

That was all I needed to hear. I turned back to the others and gave a suggestion:

“I think the best way to do that would be joining our powers and forcing our way through the crowd.”

“I'm up for it.” Rainbow answered almost instantly “Some speed magic should help getting through faster.”

“Ah can go in front using barrier magic.” Was Applejack's contribution.

“I'll keep watch to see if they'll try anything unexpected!” Pinkie giggled, mimicking binoculars.

“Ah. I think it would be best if I helped with the barriers.” Fluttershy spoke softly.

None of the others seemed to have decided on what to do, so I took charge.

“Rarity, you and me should focus on thinning the herd in ranged magic. Twilight, you keep an eye on all the spells and make sure everything is working correctly.”

Both of them nodded, and I turned to look at Sunset.

“This place should be reasonably safe, but even if it isn't, remember that the emergency teleportation spell will trigger, and don't panic. We should be done soon.”

She looked a little uncertain for a moment, before banishing it with a nod, I nodded as well, and the seven of us got into a triangular formation, Applejack at the point, me and Rarity at the back, Twilight and Pinkie in the center and Fluttershy and Rainbow just behind Applejack.

And then we ran in, the magic of the pendants helping connect us and make the formation stronger.

-0-

“You'll have to give me a few more details later.” Twilight looked interested “You weren't as advanced in the use of the pendants the last time I went there.”

“Do those supplies include writing supplies?” Sunset asked.

Twilight gave her a Look.

“Oh yeah. Stupid question. I'll deal with it later, now back to the story.”

-0-

Applejack created her barrier, which followed the outline of our formation, and Fluttershy reinforced it with root-like crystals. Rainbow Dash used her own spell and suddenly we were going twice as fast, and I couldn't pay attention to what the others were doing, since I was continually shooting magic ahead of us to create a path.

The distance we had to cross to get to the barrier was about a kilometer and a half. And considering the speed at which we were moving, it should have took around twenty seconds to cross it. But I would not be confident to state that based only on my memory. Time seemed to stretch unnaturally as I focused only on the best places to shoot next, collaborating with Rarity easily as both of us used piercing spells that went through a few of the enemies, allowing the others to be trampled by our charge.

I really can't say much else about it. Well, I would have noticed if Twilight had needed to do something, or if Pinkie had alerted of some surprise, but neither of those things happened.

We got to the barrier. Far enough away from the Shadow Leader that it couldn't attack us without moving first. All of us put one hand on the barrier and extended the other hand towards the enemy.

You should understand more or less how it is to do that kind of united magic. The feeling is a little like how it was in the battle against the sirens, but less... spontaneous. It just felt like we had an understanding and could communicate our intentions clearly.

Twilight formed the base of the magic, knowing what would be effective on the monster. I shaped the magic into an arrow to make it easier to penetrate and deliver the energy, and the other five did their own small modifications and helped stabilize everything.

And then, our arrow of green energy shot at the monster before he could react.

There was a flash of light, and I could briefly see the large hole in the middle of the enemy, and then, a phenomenal noise was released. It sounded like a building sized paper being torn in half, and the monster quickly lost its form and split into thousands of grains of shadow before vanishing. And immediately after that, the rest of the army of shadows vanished in the same manner.

I allowed the magical connection to fade, and then looked towards Sunset.

Classes would definitely be canceled due to this, so that moment would be the perfect opportunity for all of us to have a talk with her.

Author's Note

And finally another chapter. We are almost out of the awkward beginning, and I'll try to release a chapter per week from now on.

Questions and Answers

After that, Twilight accessed the formation and did a scan of every area of the university, just to make sure that everything was fine. She smiled and nodded, and then we finally relaxed.

“So, girls... Considering that Sunset has arrived, I think we should take a couple hour off and answer her questions.” I said, looking at my dimensional doppelganger in the distance.

“Okay. Let's see your new roommate.” Rarity said.

And we did it, walking towards Sunset.

When we got close, I gestured for her to come with us, and we walked to a group of benches that were nearby.

I sat down, and Pinkie and Rarity sat down right by my sides, smiling in victory and holding my arms. The other girls all sat around, including Sunset herself.

“Okay.” I told her “I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and we are going to do our best to answer all of them.”

She took a moment to gather her thoughts and calm down, and then asked her first question.

“What was that about everyone here being able to use magic?”

Twilight was the one to respond to that.

“Ah, that was actually my doing.” She smiled “There was an incident where we had to fight some guy called 'King of Darkness', and we ended up harnessing the feeling of everyone on campus to defeat him.” She paused for a moment “That was strictly a one time thing, but all of them started asking us how they could help, so eventually I created those artifacts that contain spells. They are powered by the formations on campus and can only be used here, but they are activated and directed by the students.”

Sunset thought about that for a bit “And I presume the whole 'escape spell' thing is similar?”

Twilight nodded “Indeed. That one happened even earlier, when I decided that it was best to have an automatic way of protecting the other students who would be endangered by those events.”

-0-

“Considering her ability in spell and formation creation, I kinda want to hire Twilight to do some work on my palace.” Twilight said.

“I'm sure she would have fun with it.” Sunset nodded.

-0-

“Right. That makes sense... Now, about those dangerous things that keep appearing in this college... What is the deal with that?”

“Well... Essentially, because magic is starting to bloom is this world due to certain events, you could say that the source of magic here is incredibly pure.” I was the one who answered this time “Because of that, it keeps attracting dimensional monsters and similar things that want that pure magic for themselves.” I sighed “Thankfully, the fact that the magic here is still not mature also means that it is difficult to affect this world directly, so even the biggest threats can only use a fraction of their power when they come here, so we are able to hold on.”

“Right...” She seemed to be considering it “And about those 'events'... I imagine it has to do with the parts of the story you said you would 'explain later'.”

“Yeah... It's not really something I like remembering...” I took a moment to look at the girls, who smiled at me in support “But when I first came to this world, I wasn't exactly a good girl.”

Sunset waited patiently for me to gather my thoughts, and them I told the story.

I spoke about how I had become the evil ruler of the school, driving friends apart from each other. How I stole your crown, and ended up turning into a demon. How I was forgiven for that, and eventually fought alongside you against the sirens. How I met this world's Twilight and managed to save her in the same way, as well as the adventure that led to us getting the pendants.

-0-

“By the way, she was interested in meeting you, so I think you will have a lot to talk about the next time you go to the human world.” Sunset said.

“That's fair. She also seems like an interesting person.” Twilight answered.

-0-

And of course, I also told her the abridged version of how I gained my six girlfriends. And again, this was the part that she seemed to be the most incredulous about.

“So... Do you have any further questions?” I asked Sunset.

She closed her eyes and thought.

“I think just one more.” She eventually said “What are... your plans for the future? How do you plan to deal with all this magic stuff?”

“Well...” I started “It's more or less like we've already been doing. The seven of us are doing our college courses here, and also doing the magic thing as a side project. We research stuff, keep crises contained and make sure the slow spread of magic isn't going to cause too much chaos.”

“Ahhh...” Sunset seemed to be thinking a lot about it.

“However!” Pinkie got up suddenly, walking near Sunset “There's another important matter we need to take care off!”

“What...?” Sunset asked, uncomprehending.

Applejack took the chance to slip into Pinkie's previous place beside me.

“We need to decide how we're going to call you!” Pinkie nodded firmly “Since you're both Sunset, you should have a nickname so we can distinguish when we're talking to each of you.”

“That sounds... reasonable.” Sunset concluded.

“Then... Since you're Sunset, how about we call you Sun! Like Sun Wukong!” Pinkie suggested.

“I'm not a monkey.” Sunset rejected immediately.

“Goku, then?”

“Now you're stretching the reference... And Goku is more associated with the moon, instead of the sun.”

“So, Superman?”

“I'm a girl.”

“Supergirl?”

“I'd rather not have a superhero name.

“Amaterasu.”

“I'd rather not have a deity name either.”

And so, the two of them went back and forth as the rest of us watched.

I smiled, seeing that Sunset was already getting along well with the girls.

Author's Note

So... A week has eight days, right?

Also, this chapter was so short...

Still, next chapter, we'll finally get to the parts of this story I really wanted to write about. See you there!

Date with Twilight

“After that, I guess you could say that things settled down, mostly.” Sunset said to Princess Twilight “I started introducing Sunset to the basics about what we knew of magic, specially the traits specific to the magic of the human world.

“Apart from that, not much really happened that was all that different from usual. Sunset did get along with the girls, and sometimes they even went to go things together without me.” Sunset thought for a bit “Which probably helped with some things that happened later, but I'm getting ahead of myself... Ah, and you wanted to hear about my relationship with the other girls as well, so I could tell you about the date I went with Twilight during that time.”

The alicorn princess immediately picked up another scroll and prepared to take notes “Please do.” She said.

“Well...” Sunset started.

-0-

It had been planned out for a while. Twilight had heard about a book fair that would be going on in the neighboring city and asked if I would be interested to go together. Obviously I said yes, and then there was the two month wait where we prepared things ahead of time and tried to plan around any eventualities.

Yes, Twilight, I do realize how much you have in common with your counterpart, but I still say there's some pretty big differences. I'd say that she lacks confidence except for in a few situations, while you have confidence except for in a few situations. It's the reverse.

Going back to the story... Well, when the day arrived, I woke up at five and a half in the morning, brushed my teeth and washed my face, then I loaded up the car with the bags we had prepared previously and waited.

We had decided to use my car to go there, so when Twilight arrived she sat on the passenger side and I started driving. It was only an hour and a half and I put in some music we had previously decided on and started our drive. On the way we stopped at a cafe to have breakfast, which was just a light meal, since we were still going to drive a while to get there.

But I think I already talked enough about all the little details, so let's get to what really matters: The fair itself.

It wasn't all that different from book fairs in Equestria. There were books absolutely everywhere, of any type you can think off, some of them only being shown, like a collection of first editions of books from a famous and very old publishing company.

But most of them were actually for sale, and a good portion was even discounted, with book merchants having come from everywhere to peddle their wares. And there were also lots of famous authors all around, ready to sign copies or their books while they waited for group events like interviews and discussions.

You wouldn't know about the famous books and authors of the other side, so I won't give any details, but I'm sure you can imagine how it was. I let Twilight take the lead for the first half of the day, and it was absolutely adorable to see her reactions every time she got excited over a new find. We got loaded up with books pretty quickly.

The last we planned to go event before lunch was a lecture on writing magic, by famous fantasy author Moonstone Dream. I read a few of her books, but Twilight was the one who was the big fan of hers.

The lecture was pretty good, since Moonstone was a good speaker and had prepared previously. The main theme of it was avoiding tying down a magic system with too many rules, because that destroys the sense of wonder that should be inherent in magic.

I see you're frowning a little, Twilight. And yeah, my partner had a few things to say about that too, so when the lecture ended and Arlana asked if anyone had any questions, Twilight raised her hand immediately. Moonstone pointed at her and Twilight stood up and spoke:

“As for the question of rules in magic, my perspective is that a lack of rules is just as bad as too many rules, since it's difficult to convince the reader that something is amazing if you haven't established a baseline for what is normal. I think that considering rules to be the problem is missing the point.”

Now, it was there that Moonstone committed a mistake. She decided to argue with Twilight about it.

“You are entitled to your own opinion, but my reasoning goes that the wonder should be your main priority, instead of trying to shove it on top of rules as an afterthought.” She said.

“And you are assuming that rules will inevitably be a hindrance to the story, but a properly developed set of rules can actually make it easier to create wonder. In fact, the rules themselves can be wondrous, if you think of them the right way.” Twilight replied.

And so it went. Twilight got into a prolonged discussion with Moonstone. I'm sure the rest of the audience were very surprised with that turn of events, but I couldn't really say for sure. I was too distracted by how hot Twilight looked speaking with conviction like that.

Their discussion only ended when the next guest speaker came around, because the time for the lecture had ended. Both Twilight and Moonstone looked surprised at the fact that all this time had passed. I immediately grabbed Twilight and dragged her out, before she could notice how everyone was looking at her.

“Did we really speak for so long?” Twilight asked, after snapping out of her confusion.

At that point we were already safely away from the crowd, and halfway towards to the snack bar where we would eat our lunch, because I was very efficient in escaping from awkward situations, a skill that had become more and more necessary as of late.

“Yeah. Time surely does fly when you're having fun.” I replied with a smile.

“Having fun? I guess I was...” Twilight muttered “Sorry if it was boring for you, but I simply had to speak up...”

“Ah, it wasn't boring at all.” I assured her “I was also having fun, just appreciating how pretty you looked, so full of confidence.”

Twilight did a full face blush when hearing that. So adorable.

“Well... What are we going to eat?” She changed the subject.

At that point, we were almost there, so that discussion was shelved until we got to the snack bar and looked at the menu. I could talk about what we ate, but that's not what you're here for, so I'm just going to say that it was delicious. However, the dessert was a different story.

“I would like to order a large size ice cream cup. Strawberry and cream, and could I have two spoons with it?” Was what I asked at the cashier. Since I had finished my meal earlier, I was the one to order, just as planned.

I went back to the table to wait for the ice cream, but instead of sitting across from Twilight like before, I plopped down on the bench right beside her.

“Sunset?” She was confused by it.

“I asked for ice cream for two.” I said, slipping my arm behind her back for a hug.

She smiled and allowed it, so we spent the rest of the wait cuddled together. And I didn't remove my hand even after the ice cream got there. I simply used my other hand to take one of the spoons and took a chunk out of the cup.

I ate it while waiting for Twilight to do the same, then took another chunk and offered to feed Twilight with it.

She blushed quite a lot, but she did eat from my spoon. Then she took a chunk with her own spoon and offered it to me. Of course I took it, and I made sure to look straight into her eyes as I did it.

And the next few minutes were pretty much like that. I took the opportunity to get in quite a few caresses and small kisses, because what would be the point of a date without that.

+0+

Sunset almost laughed when she saw Twilight writing down furiously.

“Cadance is gonna love this!” Twilight declared.

+0+

After that, we were preparing to go back into the fair, but then my cellphone beeped, and I saw that it was a message from Rainbow Dash. It said, and I quote:

“There's problems.”

I showed the message to Twilight, who sighed and said:

“At least we got to have most of the date.”

Author's Note

As promised, this story lives again.

Suddenly, Ninjas

“So, what exactly was the problem?” Princess Twilight asked Sunset.

“Long story short, ninjas.” Sunset said.

Twilight gave Sunset a very unimpressed look “That was a little bit too short. Please, go on with the story so I can learn what exactly was happening.”

Sunset smiled and continued with the story.

+0+

Twilight and me went to the car and drove back to the city. We couldn't continue with the date, but there was also no reason to rush too much. After all, if things were really critical, the others could summon us via magic.

That had happened a few times, and one of those times both me and Rarity ended up learning that the magic was at least conscientious enough to dress up those of us who had been caught in... compromising situations.

+0+

Twilight put a hoof to her mouth, as if to stifle a laugh “I imagine that Rarity freaked out a lot before that was established.”

Sunset grinned at her “Yep. And it was soooo adorable.”

“And I really want to ask more about you and Rarity, but I'm not going to be distracted. Please, go on with your story.” Twilight asked.

+0+

Anyway, while we were coming back, Rarity sent an e-mail to our shared account, containing a report of what had happened.

Apparently, during one of her regular inspections of our magical keystones, Rainbow Dash discovered that three of them, which was almost half, had been stolen and replaced with very convincing fakes.

The message went on to say “She was lying, of course. I suppose she was too embarrassed to admit to what really happened. Considering that one of the fake ones she showed me was broken, I imagine that she simply tripped and fell into the trophy case and broke it by accident.”

“That really seems like something Rainbow Dash would do.” Twilight commented.

“So, this was revealed after three of them had already been stolen...” I muttered aloud “Looks like the story-magic based defenses we put on the keystones are working properly.” I told Twilight.

+0+

“Story magic...?” Twilight asked Sunset, her face scrunched up like she had sucked some abnormally bitter lemon.

“Yeah, story magic.” Sunset confirmed, shaking her head in sympathy “I know how you feel. Princess Celestia taught me about how dangerous it is. However, Human-Twilight and me came to the conclusion that it would be okay to use in a limited capacity, since that world still has very little magic.”

Twilight sighed “While I am relieved that the other world is probably not going to be subsumed by Stories, simply thinking about actually using such magic makes me a little sick.”

Sunset nodded in understanding “Anyway, like I was saying...”

+0+

Because the story magic protections would forbid the lack of conflict, they had arranged for the thefts to be found out just before the halfway mark, a conveniently dramatic point.

“I imagine that another one of the keystones will have been stolen by the time we get there.” Twilight said, pensively.

“Leaving us with only three left.” I continued the thought “At which point we would have two options...”

“Either setting traps on the remaining keystones, or using them as tools to track down whoever was responsible.” Twilight finished the idea.

The two of us fell silent for a few minutes, as we considered the positives and negatives of each approach as Twilight was driving us back home (we had already decided that she would be the driver for the return trip).

“Regardless, we'll probably end up left with only one keystone by the time things finish.” Twilight commented.

“Yeah, story magic is inconvenient because of things like that.” I agreed.

+0+

Sunset stopped her story for a moment upon seeing Twilight furiously scribbling words on the scrolls, apparently trying to work out her frustrations. It took over a minute, but she eventually took a deep breath and stopped.

“It's okay. I'm alright now.” Twilight said “I'm not going to get any more worked up over story magic anymore.”

“That's very mature of you, Twilight.” Sunset said with a grin.

Twilight just shook her head and motioned for her friend to continue.

+0+

The rest of the trip back didn't have anything of note. We arrived, placed the car back in its place and went back to the university. As soon as we entered the campus grounds, Pinkie ran right up to us and spoke, clearly out of breath:

“Sunset, Twi! It happened! It-”

“Another keystone was stolen, right?” Twilight understood quickly.

“Oh, how did you know that, Twi?” Pinkie asked “Did you finally figure out how to read minds with magic? Can you say what I'm thinking right now?” Pinkie put her index fingers on her temples “Oh, no?! I can't think of a specific thing to think about!” She exclaimed in horror.

“Sorry, Pinkie. I haven't figured out that spell yet.” Twilight spoke up “I just had a feeling that something like that was going to happen, is all.”

“Oh?” Pinkie tilted her head before leaning towards Twilight “So it's just because of your smart smartiness, then.”

“Twilight was the main designer of our protection spells, so of course she would know that kind of thing.” I said, putting a hand on Twilight's shoulder “But we don't have time to talk about that at the moment, let's go see the others.”

And soon enough, we were all gathered inside one of the empty classrooms, which we tended to use as meeting rooms, and by everyone, I mean the seven of us and Sunset as well, which I found to be a little unusual, so I asked about it.

Applejack was the one to answer “Sunset took a look at things, and she figured whoever did the thefts was using non-magical methods.”

“Oh, really? Could you explain to me in detail?” I asked Sunset.

“Well...” She said “I just looked at the crime scenes, and there was evidence of tampering on the lock of the crystal case, and also I took a look at the security camera footage and found certain spots where the image seemed to blink in and out, so I went to examine the cameras.

“There were some traces of adhesive on them, so I came to the conclusion that whoever did this must have taken pictures of what the cameras were supposed to be seeing, and placed those pictures in front of the lenses to do their thing.” She finished.

I was impressed “And then they removed the pictures before going away.” I continued the train of thought “That's some very impressive investigative work. I would like to hear how you learned to do this, but later, for now we have other things to worry about.”

“Like how to prevent them from getting the rest of the keystones.” Fluttershy said “If they managed to get control of the magical source, it would be... bad.”

“Yeah...” Twilight agreed “Sunset and me were talking about it on the way over, and there are two possibilities for things to do.” She said “We could either try to track them down via using a spell through our remaining keystones, or we could set up a trap on them to catch our thieves.”

“Actually, I've been thinking about that.” I said “And how about we do both things at once?”

“You mean... We should split up?” Rainbow Dash asked, understanding quickly.

“That's right.” I agreed “It would be a little bit of a pain to set up the spells in such a way so we can trap and track at the same time, but apart from that, I think doing things like that is only beneficial.”

It took a bit more discussion, which included Twilight objecting to my statement about that being only beneficial, as she pointed out that splitting our focus would make each of the approaches weaker than if we chose just one, to which I conceded.

Still, in the end we decided that even considering that, we would still go with my plan, since the potential positives outweighed the negatives.

We split up into two teams, with team tracking being me, Sunset, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. While team trap would be Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity.

Twilight and me started working on the spells we would use for our plan, and meanwhile, the others were preparing in the way they could for our missions. Besides Sunset, the others were focusing their magical power, while she seemed to be trying to keep her calm and not freak out.

It wasn't really working.

“Are you feeling all right?” Fluttershy noticed that, and tried to talk to her.

“I'm-” She shook her head, clearly rethinking her words “I don't know. Even though I said I wanted to help, I don't know if I'll be able to do anything.” She stopped again, trying to gather her thoughts “You girls are just so experienced and confident about those things, while I'm just a newcomer. What if I mess something up?”

+0+

“Ah, just to make things clear.” Sunset suddenly piped up “I didn't actually see any of it, since I was busy, so the details about that conversation might be not entirely correct, since they are from second hand, but the gist of it should be fine.”

“Thank you for the clarification.” Twilight said “I'll note this in my... notes.” She giggled a bit.

“Right. Back to the story.”

+0+

Surprisingly enough, Rainbow Dash was the one who helped Sunset with that.

“Hey, Shim.” (That was the nickname they had eventually settled on for human Sunset) “We may have experience on those kinds of things, but that doesn't mean we don't mess up.”

“As you would know very well.” Rarity joked, looking at Rainbow Dash with a small smirk.

“Hey, I'm trying to be cool here!” Dash spoke up, but without any real heat “But really, you did pretty well the first time you had to deal with something unexpected.” She returned to her conversation with Sunset “As long as we have each other's backs, we can make up for any mistakes we commit, so just do what you can and don't worry about being perfect.”

Sunset became speechless upon hearing that. It wasn't really a surprise, though, considering that Rainbow Dash was speaking from experience.

+0+

“Eventually, we finished our work, creating the two needed spells. They were separate but interlinked, since we wouldn't have been able to get it to work otherwise. We used two of the keystones as focuses for the spell, leaving just one without any spells in it.” Sunset said.

“I think I see where this is going...” Twilight spoke.

“Hey, no getting ahead of the story!” Sunset warned her.

“Ah, sorry.” Twilight replied, embarrassed.

“So...” Sunset continued “Since we would have to take the spelled tracker keystone to use it to search, the one we chose for that was the fall formal crown. The real one, not the stolen element of magic. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Twilight smiled at the shared joke.

+0+

Anyway, it was decided that the operation would start at four in the afternoon, since that would give time for all of us to rest and prepare ourselves mentally for the task.

By which I mean we went to eat some burgers together, of course. (The defense group went to get ice cream, apparently.)

“How long do you think it'll take before we stop receiving weird looks when we're together?” I asked Sunset, who seemed to have calmed down a lot.

She smirked “I think it should take about two months for that to slow down, but we're never going to actually stop getting those looks.”

I shook my head “That sounds disturbingly plausible.”

“Still, it's pretty funny.” Rainbow put in her own two cents.

“Do you have any idea what we're going to be facing here?” Fluttershy asked, her cautiousness (which was the reason why they had put her in the tracking team) shining through.

“Considering their apparent knowledge of modern security measures, it's quite probably someone from our own world that has been empowered by some extra dimensional entity.” I replied “I believe it should be no more than one person, because it is very difficult to do such a thing multiple times. However, the empowered person may have normal underlings, potentially outfitted with magical weapons.

“The main enemy may be empowered, but they probably wouldn't have too much actual magical knowledge, so even though their abilities may be strong, they shouldn't be very versatile. Finding the weak points and striking them should lead us to victory.” I finished my analysis.

The other three nodded.

+0+

After we finished, I put on the necklace with the crown and started tracking. The four of us got into a car (Rainbow Dash on the driver's seat, of course) and I gave directions to head towards the stolen keystones.

Soon enough, it became clear that the target was in the city itself, not outside of it. We drove through the streets, eventually reaching downtown, which was a place with very few houses and a lot of factories and warehouses.

The place was very complicated and confusing, a veritable labyrinth of criss-crossing streets that resulted in several occasions were we had to turn back and take another path. It was pretty annoying.

However, eventually we managed to reach our target. It was a secluded warehouse that didn't seem to have been used in a while. Just to try and get the element of surprise, we actually drove past the warehouse and stopped after a curve, before leaving the car and walking to the warehouse in a group.

I took the point position, having shield spells prepared in case of any eventualities. Rainbow Dash was behind me, ready to use her speed spells to rush to wherever she was most necessary. Third was Fluttershy, quietly whispering a stealth spell. And in the rearguard was Sunset, who couldn't use the wand from before since we weren't on campus grounds, but had received a similar one that could feed of my magic. She was in charge of keeping watch for any surprises and giving covering fire if necessary.

Still, getting inside the place turned out to be surprisingly simple and uneventful, with me unlocking a side door with a small spell after figuring out the lack of any kind of alarm system, magical or otherwise. However, the calmness wouldn't last long.

As soon as I got past the side room we started with, I reached a large and empty loading area, and was immediately seen.

“Ah! Intruders!” The person who shouted was standing on top of a raised platform, and was much different than what I had expected.

She was a girl who looked to be only fourteen or fifteen, and who had blue eyes and hair. She was wearing a very strange combination of a pink dress and a brown overcoat.

Seeing that I was already exposed, I immediately activated an aura shield spell, stepping forward and looking around for any possible ambushes. The other three were just behind me.

There was no ambush, as it seemed like that girl was the only person inside, and I couldn't detect any extra defenses. However, before we could shift from defense to attack, the girl acted.

“Summon!” She shouted, holding both hands forward, showing that they had strange magic circles tattooed on their palms “Ninja Squad!”

I felt the distinctive smell of summoning magic, as six magic circles appeared on the warehouse, four on the walls, one on the ground only a few feet away from us, and even one on the ceiling. And they weren't small either.

I was shocked by the amount of sheer power the summoner had put on display, and hadn't actually processed her words, so I was shocked again when the wave of magic passed, and the space of the circles was filled with dozens of stereotypical ninja, black garb and all.

After a moment, they advanced in our direction, some doing wall jumps, some swinging on weird whips and some doing completely unnecessary cartwheels.

+0+

Once again, Princess Twilight had been left with a twitching eye.

“Magic to summon ninja? Seriously?” She asked.

Sunset shook her head “Please, don't make me have this discussion again, I already had it with my Twilight.” She blinked “In fact, why don't I hand you a transcript of that conversation, that would answer any questions you could have, right?” Sunset smiled wanly.

Without a word, Twilight passed a scroll and quill to Sunset, causing the unicorn to sigh in relief.

The rest of the story would have to wait.

Author's Note

That took a while, but the next chapter should wrap this little plot up for now.

I hope you're liking it.